A magnetic resonance imaging method capable of depicting flow of low velocity such as blood flow in the lower extremities without infusing a contrast agent includes fresh blood imaging (FBI) method. FBI method has an advantage that flow of lower velocity can be depicted well compared to other non-contrast methods, such as time-of-flight (TOF) method or phase contrast (PC) method. Further, FBI method has an advantage that images along the blood flow direction can be acquired with a fewer number of slices compared to TOF method or PC method.
In FBI method, pulse sequences are executed in two different cardiac phases, such as in the systolic phase and in the diastolic phase, thereby acquiring two pieces of data (two source images). Subsequently, subtraction processing is performed between the two pieces of data (two source images) acquired, thereby generating, for example, a subtraction image such as a subtraction maximum intensity projection (MIP) image.
However, in a case in which a disease such as stenosis is found in the subtraction image, for example, it is preferable that the details be observable by returning to the two source images, in which case it is preferable that fat suppression be already completed even in the source images.
However, an introduction of a short TI (inversion time) inversion recovery (STIR) pulse for fat suppression in accordance with a normal method sometimes renders blood signals inconspicuous.